Syria-Based Jihadi Cleric Urges Hamas To Raise 'White Flag' Of 'Holy Jihad' Against The Infidels As Taliban Did

Memri

5 days ago

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On July 22, 2025, Egyptian-born, Syria-based jihadi cleric Yahya Al-Farghali aka Abu Al-Fath published an essay titled "To Hamas: Raise the White Flag out of Mercy for the People."[1] In his essay Al-Farghali calls on Hamas to shake off "idolatrous" concepts and Western creations such as nationalism, democracy and human rights, and urges it to follow in the footsteps of the Taliban and raise a pure "white flag" of "holy jihad" for the application of Islamic shari'a law and in opposition to the infidels.
Al-Farghali opens his essay by stating that at first, he was among the enthusiastic supporters of Al-Aqsa Flood, the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, and noted its many advantages, first and foremost the fact that it broke "the slide toward normalization" that he claims those who betrayed Palestine and the Al-Aqsa Mosque were slipping toward. However, he adds that from the first day he believed that the major flaw in the plan for that campaign was Hamas's misjudgment regarding the Islamic regimes and the extent of "their self-humiliation and collaboration" (with the enemy).
Al-Farghali explains that for all of Islamic history, to the days of the Rashidun Caliphate[2] "the mujahideen who walked the straight path" would examine their sins and the transgressions they committed when the victory on the battlefield tarried. He wrote that the Quran teaches that a Muslim army is not defeated by the strength of its enemies but due to its own failures, as it is written: "Why is it when you suffered casualties [at Uḥud]—although you had made your enemy suffer twice as much [at Badr]—you protested, 'How could this be?'? Say, [O Prophet,] 'It is because of your disobedience'…" (Quran 3:165).
In this context, Al-Farghali accuses Hamas of trying to adopt "international concepts, such as democracy and human rights" which, he claims, do not correspond to the Islamic religion and sometimes even contradict it, using the argument that they are compelled to do so due to the exigencies of circumstances. He contends that such behavior is forbidden to those who lead the Islamic nation because it misleads those who follow it. Moreover, he asserts that even the West and the international community sanctify such "idols" only as long as they don't harm their own economic interests or those of their "nurturer [Israel]," and when they do hurt those interests, then they (the West) "devour their idols, without any sorrow or need to justify this."
He asks Hamas: "Has the time not come for you to raise the pure white flag, that bears only the Shahadah (the Islamic profession of faith),"[3] as the Taliban did in Afghanistan and then Allah granted it victory? He clarifies that he is not referring to a flag in the sense of a piece of cloth, but as the goal described in the hadith attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, which reads: "he who fights under a banner of ignorance showing anger in support of party spirit, or summoning people to party spirit, or helping party spirit, and then is killed will be killed like those of pre-Islamic times."
Al-Farghali calls on Hamas to raise only one flag which is the flag "of the holy jihad" for the sake of applying shari'a law and "ousting the unbelief," because it is the infidel and not because it is imperialism or colonialism which negates the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people, or any other national or pan-Arab slogan. He urges it to take action "before it's too late," and stresses that if it really does so, then Allah will grant it victory and save it and its people. He also stresses that his words do not constitute a denial of the Muslim obligation to urgently come to the aid of their brothers in Gaza, to the best of their ability.
It is notable that when Hamas perpetrated its attack against Israel, Al-Farghali called for suicide attacks against Israelis all over the world, and declared that the "quickest deterrence of the massacres committed against Gaza" would be a large-scale campaign of unrestrained martyrdom-seeking – i.e. suicide – operations so that the situation "gets out of control."[4]